Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
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Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

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By Rick Holmes

Oct. 5, 2013
12:15 p.m.

You might think Massachusetts has a progressive tax code, since the good liberals on Beacon Hill have done whatever they could – income tax exemptions and deductibles, exempting food and clothing from the sales tax – to tilt the tax burden away from the commonwealth’s neediest citizens.

You might think Massachusetts has a flat tax code, since it’s written into the state constitution that everyone must be charged the same tax rates on earned and unearned income.

In either case, you’d be wrong, but in order to know that, someone would have to ask the question. Thanks to a provision in this summer’s transportation financing law – put there by Sen. Karen Spilka, it should be noted – the new Tax Fairness Commission asked the DOR how much different income groups are paying in state taxes.

According to a State House News Service story sent to subscribers (which I can’t find online, which may mean no one bothered to publish it), the DOR (I can’t find the report online either) broke up taxpayers by quintile and showed how much of their earnings they pay in income, sales and certain excise taxes:

Top earners:† 5.7 percent of earnings

Second quintile:† 6.25 percent

Third quintile: 6.8 percent

Fourth quintile: 8 percent

Lowest quintile: 12.2 percent

There’s more questions to be asked, and a serious discussion to be had. I’m hoping some would-be governors will take it on. I have more thoughts here.